The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Dec. 28, 1999
Filed:
May. 21, 1997
Suresh Agarwal, San Jose, CA (US);
Krishnan C Dharmarajan, Fremont, CA (US);
NeoMagic Corp., Santa Clara, CA (US);
Abstract
A multimedia notebook or laptop personal computer (PC) has an enhanced audio system. An external audio controller in a docking station is connected to the laptop PC's audio system using a digital-audio link. The digital-audio link uses digital signals that have high noise immunity. The high noise immunity allows the digital-audio signals to be routed through the inexpensive docking connector, which has many other noisy, high-speed signals. Dedicated, expensive, noise-prone, and difficult-to-connect analog-audio connectors between the laptop PC and the docking station are eliminated. Analog-digital converter audio CODEC's are placed in both the docking station and in the laptop PC. A master mixer in the laptop PC mixes digital audio from the external audio controller in the docking station with digital audio from an external audio controller inside the laptop PC. The master mixer also connects to a zoom-video audio port and to an internal PCI bus for storing and retrieving audio clips. Audio from external docking-station sources and from internal sources can be freely mixed with the master mixer connected to local mixers in the audio controllers. Audio can be simultaneously played to both internal and external docking-station speakers.